FAIRFIELD COUNTY, Conn. -- Office supply giant Staples plans to close up to 225 of its North American stores by the end of the year and its 10 Fairfield County locations could be among those that shutter its operations, according to NBC News.

The closures reportedly amount to 12 percent of the total Staples stores on the continent, as the market moves more toward online sales of office supplies.

Staples is hoping to slash company costs by $500 million by the end of 2015, according to the article.

Comments (13)

Staples has let WalMart, Best Buy and Costco beat them on price for different items. They are no longer a "go to" destination for supplies carried by other vendors. They should have made some kind of niche with unique service that differentiated them from big box stores. Case in point: I never hear about what I have accumulated in Staples rewards and how/when to redeem them.

Genius Obama Supporter: Get your facts in order before you spit out uneducated comments. Staples earnings are NOT the highest they've ever been thanks to Obama's (cough cough) "leadership". 2013 produced a 17% decline vs. 2012 earnings.

FACTS As quoted from Forbes (you have heard of that publication right?):
On a full-year basis, Staples reported $23.1 billion in 2013 revenue, a 5.2% drop over 2012 full-year revenue. Full-year operating income came in at $1.2 billion, resulting in earnings of $1.16 per share, a 17% decline over full-year 2012 earnings.

Genius
Brick and mortar stores are a thing of the past.
People shop in a new way that you may have heard of its called the Internet.
FYI
Staples earnings are the highest they have ever been.. So yes you are correct the recovery is picking up steam.. Thanks to president Obama's leadership.

Paige,
Staples has a robust website already and while same store sales were down 7%, overall sales were down 10.6%. there's not a shift going on....even the CEO said "people simply arent buying as many office products"...

to give obama credit for their longstanding success (seeing as how it's Romney's company) might just be the best line yet. i guess that's the opposite of "blame bush"...."credit obama"....awesome.

Here are some key takeaways from the CBO report:
1.More than 700,000 American workers would be lifted out of poverty
More than 1 million retail workers and their family members live in or close to poverty. By raising the minimum wage of full-time workers to the equivalent of $12.25 per hour, 734,075 people would be lifted out of poverty and an additional 769,191 people living near the poverty line would see their incomes rise to more than 150 percent above the poverty line.
2.GDP would rise by as much as $15.2 billion
A wage increase to $12.25 an hour would impact more than 5 million workers and their families. As these families have access to more money, they will spend more, translating to as much as $15.2 billion in new economic activity, according to Demos.

3.132,000 new jobs could be created
If the increase in economic activity reached $15.2 billion, retailers would need 132,000 new employees.

4.The wage increase would actually only cost retailers about 1 percent of total sales
Large retailers would need to absorb the higher labor cost for the 3.5 million workers earning less than $12.25 per hour. But according to Demos, most of this increase in costs would be returned to the firm in the form of productivity gains and increased revenues, amounting to only 1 percent of their total yearly sales.

5.It would generate as much as $5 billion in additional retail revenue
In fact, assuming that low-income families spend rather than save the money from the wage increase, retailers could expect at least 20 cents in new revenue for every additional payroll dollar. That would have added up to as much as $5 billion in 2012.

6.The average shopper would pay just 15 cents more per shopping trip at most
Even if the nation's largest retailers decided to pass off the cost of a $12.25 minimum wage increase entirely to customers, Demos found that an average household would spend just 7 to 15 cents more per shopping trip.